Got a murky past? Don't delay in getting your pardon

As many people know, it is possible, after a decent interval has transpired, to apply to the federal government to have your criminal record expunged with the grant of a pardon.

I'm sure the legislators who originally enacted the pardon legislation intended that youthful indiscretions, such as a toke too many at a rock concert, or an overly exuberant night on the town, didn't stain one’s character forever by way of an indelible criminal record, so the procedures involved were quite straightforward, and the fee ($50) was very modest. Many Canadians must be prone to youthful hi-jinks because some 20,000 pardon applications are received each year, and since our southern neighbours have begun hardening their border, pardon applications have soared to over 30,000 per year. 

As avid readers of the Standing Senate Committee on Legal & Constitutional Affairs will already know, that committee, acting upon the advice and recommendation of the National Parole Board (which has the responsibility for pardons), recently decided that it was time to boost the application fee to $150. At first blush this is hardly anything to be concerned about; the fees hadn't been raised for quite some time, and the new fee was still pretty modest. 

But, if you are one of those with a secret petty criminal past, who is worried about the possibility of an ancient criminal record rudely disrupting your next visit south in search of fun and sun and drinks with little umbrellas in them, you should be aware that the recent fee increase is only step one in the Parole Board's master plan to make you pay for respectability. 

The real reason for the fee increase stems from the egg on the faces of various politicians, when it was revealed that a notorious hockey coach, convicted of multiple counts of sexual assault, had successfully obtained a pardon. An Act to Amend the Criminal Records Act (Limiting Pardons for Serious Crimes Act) was quickly enacted. One of its features was to increase the responsibilities resting on the National Parole Board, to - amongst other things - ensure that the grant of a pardon would not bring the administration of Justice into disrepute (that is, to make sure that no more egg ends up on any politician's face). The additional workload imposed on the Board by this legislative change has boosted the real cost of processing an application to over $500, and so the Board has served notice that it intends to cover that cost by successive increases to the application fee. 

Accordingly, with the ink barely dry on the November 2010 changes to the User Fee Act, Public Safety Minister, Vic Toews, has begun pounding the table with a proposal to quadruple the application fees to $631, evidently to punish the old criminals, as well as the new. 

Since it is hard to vote against Law and Order, I would say these new fee increases are pretty much a sure thing. So if you've got a murky past, better deal with it now, before the cost goes through the roof.